Truly, Madly, Like Me - Jo Watson Page 0,2

as a crying, screaming wild woman.

No! If it hadn’t been for that faulty elevator, I wouldn’t now find myself here. Alone and lonely. Lonely time 2.0. I was officially a nobody again, lying on a bed in a hotel, because @TheKyleWhite101 had kicked me out of our flat, and glued to my phone as #FrankieFreaksOut trended and everyone who had once looked up to me threw insults my way from the safety of their social media anonymity.

And when I wasn’t watching my social-media-self crash and burn, I was stalking @TheKyleWhite101 and @Paige_Dreams_ every five minutes as they grew followers by the second and they became the #couplegoals #blessed #gratitude #winning #dreamteam that I was only seventy-two hours earlier . . .

Screw that elevator!

And screw hashtags too.

#screwthem

CHAPTER 1

I hadn’t cried like this in ten years, two hundred and seventeen days and—I looked down at my Apple watch—eight hours. Specific, I know. But the thing that happened ten years, two hundred and seventeen days and eight hours ago, has been seared into me, leaving third-degree burn scars behind that have never faded.

Hey, Frankie, they’d all said with such big smiles.

I wasn’t used to smiles. But I’d wanted them. So badly.

Wanna hang out after school? they’d asked, still smiling.

I’d never been asked to hang. But I’d always wanted to. So, so badly.

Meet us down by the cricket nets. They’d given me high-fives.

I’d never been given high-fives. But I’d wanted them. So, so, so badly . . .

I suppose a girl like me should have known better. I should have known that there would be no more smiles and hanging and high-fives. I should have known that instead there would be taunts and jeers and spit in my “fat, ugly face” before being shoved into the small shed by the sports fields that no one ever went to.

It took my mom a whole night to notice that I was missing—when she’d come home from her shift at the hospital and my bed was still made. It took the police another eight hours to find me after that. Sitting there alone in the dark shed, shivering from the winter cold, hysterical, bloody fingers and broken nails from trying to rip the door open. I should have known.

I looked down at my fingers and picked at the nail that I’d ripped off in the elevator three days ago and sobbed some more. I always wear false nails, I have to. Because since that day in the shed, I’ve bitten them. But I would hate anyone to see that. I needed a distraction, so I jumped up and did ten quick lunges across my hotel room, and then logged the activity into my exercise app—only twelve calories burned. For some reason, this made me cry even more. Surely, surely there was a universal limit to the amount of water that can come pouring out of a person’s eyeballs. I was going to become dehydrated, for heaven’s sake! This wasn’t normal. And there was no app to calculate this either, so I was really freaking out.

But the tears had been gushing on and off at steady intervals for the last three days, as if on a timer. In fact, they were perfectly timed with the movement of my hand reaching for my phone, only to discover what fresh post from hell was waiting for me there. What new number of thumbs downs, mass exodus of friends, lack of likes, like lemmings plunging off a cliff. Or maybe it was all the comments that were cutting me to the quick that were really responsible for the tears . . .

I used to look up to @FitspoFrankie, but now I just feel sorry for her.

@FitspoFrankie is a bitch. Hate her!

Who thinks that @TheKyleWhite101 and @Paige_Dreams_ make a much better #couplegoals #hotspocouple

I hope @FitspoFrankie gets fat again!

Have you ever swallowed a pill while hiccupping? It catches in your throat with a bolt of sharp pain. Chokes you, makes you splutter, and then when it finally goes down, leaves your throat feeling raw and assaulted. That’s what it felt like every single time I went back to my phone. But I couldn’t help it. I kept going back for more punishment. I needed to stop doing this, especially now that the video of me clinging to my car wailing was going viral . . .

@FitspoFrankie hanging onto her car crying is the most pathetic thing I’ve seen all year. #FrankieFreaksOut

Don’t worry @FitspoFrankie, walking will be good for you. LOL #FrankieFreaksOut

@FitspoFrankie is a